Navigate:

Specter swings power to Dems

Text Size

-

+

reset

Democrats who had been courting him had hoped Specter would announce his switch prior to the spring recess. Instead he appears to have tried a last “game changer” by announcing his opposition in March to labor-backed legislation making it easier to unionize workplaces. But when he went home, Specter saw no improvement in his standing on the right and feared he would only alienate labor supporters who have helped in previous general elections.

Specter’s departure leaves just three Republican senators in the Northeast — once a stronghold for the party’s moderate wing. But the shift is larger than any one region. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) recalls coming to the Senate in 1994 and having moderate Republican colleagues from Kansas, Wyoming and Colorado.

In the years since, she has not only seen these faces retire but also witnessed old colleagues go down to defeat in her native New England — or switch parties, like Jeffords.

After Specter spoke to the Republican luncheon Tuesday, Snowe herself spoke of the alienation felt by the moderate wing and the failure, she said, of the party to learn more from the election defeats in 2006 and 2008. The reaction she got? “No response,” she told POLITICO afterward.

“It just illustrates the point that our party has not heeded the message, from the time Jim Jeffords departed until the back-to-back losses in the 2006 and 2008 elections,” Snowe said in an interview. “It’s the overarching problem that we have as Republicans now because of the way in which the Republican Party is perceived. We have not made any dramatic changes as a party that would suggest there has been any kind of reforming, refining of who we are and what we stand for. And it’s not inclusive. I saw a lot of negative responses after the election about moderate Republicans from a lot of conservative groups. ... Maybe this is the fallout.”

Recalling her earlier career in the House, building toward the 1994 elections, when Republicans were on the rise, she said: “The point was, it was immaterial if you were considered a moderate. The question was whether you were all striving to achieve the same goal of becoming a majority.”

Asked about Snowe’s complaints, Thune told POLITICO: “She deserves a response. If you’re going to be a national party, you can’t not be competitive in the Northeast.”

But the South Dakota conservative also argued that Specter’s switch puts a new burden on moderate Democrats to step forward and engage more.

Until now, he said, Republicans have absorbed the blame for trying to block Obama’s agenda by raising filibuster threats. Once that threat goes away, the consequences of cutting off debate become more real.

“I do think it’s going to answer the question of whether there are really moderate Democrats,” Thune said. “They are no longer going to have the luxury of saying, ‘The Republicans will kill it; this is a throwaway for us.’ Now it’s going to matter.”

From this standpoint, Specter’s timing was opportune. Democrats hope to win final approval Wednesday of a new budget plan just as Obama celebrates his first 100 days. Health care looms as the big fight ahead, and Specter will have a role as well as a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which controls the heart of the president’s agenda.

Labor interests hope to “resume the conversation” with Specter over proposals to help unions organize workers. “He’s his own man; I bet he’s feeling very liberated,” said one official.

“Sen. Specter is always one of the go-to people if you want to have a decision made,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told POLITICO. “He just magnifies the middle.”

All of a sudden, it's great to have one party in control in Washington. As history repeats itself, during the Jimmy Carter presidency, the democrats had control just like today, Reagan won in landslide in 1980. Democrats always screw up when they have control. I just remembered, the media is so in love with the Messiah, we'll never know what's going on except how much the American people adore him.

Please, take Snowe, Collins and McLame in Arizona and send them to re-education camp and equip them with tin foil hats, jackass tatoos and "I'm gonna tax you, sucka" t-shirts as well. I want two distinct political parties - honest and opposing in philosophy and approach. Not this Lib Lite nonsense we see from political prostitutes like Specter. Two really different parties and let the numbers fall where they will.

Smart, selfish, but always the survivor, Specter delivered his bombshell announcement with all of that same quirkiness, but he has once again put himself in the center of a larger struggle affecting not just the Senate but a surprised President Barack Obama, too.

Smart? Hardly.

Selfish? Definitely.

A "bombshell"? Hardly. Specter had a permanent room of the Democrat side of the aisle his whole career. He's been the epitome of a RINO, so his action yesterday merely confirmed what we all knew all along. The net effect will not be as dramatic as this article makes it sound, as Specter voted with the Democrats when it counted most anyway.

We'll see how the 2010 election shakes out. Only can this decision be judged.

Isn't it ironic.? Our votes don't count for much. The Democrats have a majority in the Senate and they are still talked about as if they are a minority party unless they can get 60 votes. Who said you have to have almost two-thirds to pass anything. Senate rules are old, arcane and thwart the will of the people.

Guess the Liberals have forgiven Spector for getting Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. Other then that, he is not really a good Senator. he can join that other clown who has done nothing in his senate career, Dingy Harry.

Limbaugh says Specter should take McCain and his daughter with him. That way the party will be pure.

This is the kind of sentiment you get from people who have contamination at the heart of their convictions. There is an irrationality that becomes self-destructive to the individual, and in this case, the party.

What is happening to the Republican party isn't just about issues. It's also about race and ethnicity. There is an element of this country that believes they are the last defense for preserving the USA as a white, christian nation. The Constitution is primarily meant for them, and they are ready to defend the privilege it affords them, (in their own minds) over others, to their last dieing breath. They are the "real" Americans.

THEY ARE THE DITTOHEADS! FIGHTING FOR TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND THE AMERICAN WAY!!!!

They feel so strongly about this that some of them are prepared to secede from the union,(unless they need help from Washington) to make their point. This is what happens when Lil'Abner joins the John Birch Society.

Now that the GOP has been purified with the expulsion of anyone with any decency or common sense, all they need are some brown shirts and they can start using their assault weapons on anyone they disagree with. Like the three policemen in Pennsylvania or the bystanders in Florida.

The democratic party welcomes Arlen Specter to the democratic ranks, thank you so much "BOSS" Limbaugh, we couldnt have done it without your help, oh by the way we would take John McCain and his daughter in our party, we are a BIG TENT party not a PUP TENT like the GOP

PA voters would be glad that there's one less neosoc RINO in the ranks of America's Party. Now he can drag the progressive party down even faster. "Reality to liberals would be nothing but a self induced HOPE & CHANGE fantasy."